Spread Your Wings
by Majestic Wren
Summary: This is a closed SYOC, thanks to everyone who submitted! I got this idea from Mystic47, who is a great author and friend.
1. Chapter 1

Sylverra's Point of View

I wake with a start, lying in a cold metal crate. I try to stretch, for the 371 time, and fail, for the 371 time. The dog crate I'm lying in has been my home for 371 days. Every morning, I attempt to stretch, so every morning, I bang my head and other appendages on the hard metal webbing that makes my cage.

I figure I have about ten minutes before the whitecoats come, so I curl up again and try to go to sleep. Apparently I was successful, because I am woken up by the scratching sound of pen on paper. I open my eyes to see two whitecoats peering at me and scribbling down notes.

"Make sure you get that it sleeps in a ball. It could be 8% cat."

A whitecoat whispers to his comrade. The other whitecoat nods, and writes faster. They are always trying to find out what my unknown 8% is. I don't even know myself, but I have some ideas. I think it might be something cat-like, because I can partly see in the dark and have very good reflexes. I don't think the full 8% comes from a cat though, because I don't have a tail or whiskers, like the other cat-humans I've seen.

Once the whitecoats are finished making "observations", one of them unlocks the dog crate and gestures inside. Five Erasers come out of nowhere, and one scoops me up. If I didn't know better, I would say he's hugging me. I know he's not though. His wolf-like claws dig into my skin. I kick him fruitlessly, as the other Erasers take my friends, Carissa, Jay, and Izzy. Carissa tries to punch her Eraser, but he blocks it. All she succeeds in getting is a large bruise that I already see forming.

Jay just lets his Eraser take him, but he scratches the human-lupine hybrid when its least expecting it. The Eraser screams, which I didn't know was possible, as Jay's small fingernails make contact with its eyes.

Izzy scoots to the back of her cage, her yellow canary wings pressed uncomfortably against the metal. She lashes out at her Eraser whenever he comes close enough, and eventually the extra Eraser has to come over and hold her feet as the other Eraser grabs her from the cage.

Once we are all in the arms of an Eraser in a perfectly white and clean hallway, we proceed to wreck as much havoc as we can, screaming and kicking our Erasers, and disturbing the neighboring mad scientists. We do this every morning, trying to lighten things up in the otherwise gloomy School.

They take us farther than usual today, past a large window that I haven't seen before. Eventually we get to a huge white room. The Erasers open the door, literally throw us in, and slam the door shut. Our screaming stops abruptly.

"Well this is different."

Carissa says as she looks around.

"Yeah. I wonder if we're going to have to fight something." Izzy says, glaring at every corner like she expects Erasers to pop out of them. "Maybe we'll have to fight each other." She concludes as no Erasers come out of the white cinder blocks.

"Probably not." Izzy's little brother Jay says. "They know we're friends." Jay stares at us, looking like he's trying to convince himself as well as us that we won't have to fight each other.

Nothing happens for the next ten minutes, and I can tell Izzy's getting agitated. She's the least patient person I have ever met. Not that I've met many people, but you know what I mean.

"Maybe they're trying to see how little oxygen we can withstand." I say.

"Maybe. But why would they make us sit here and breath it all? Can't they just suck up all the oxygen with a huge vacuum or something?" Carissa says doubtfully.

"Yeah, you're probably right." I reply.

We wait for another fifteen minutes in silence.

"You know, they're probably watching us," Carissa remarks suddenly.

"More like definitely." Izzy says, still glaring at the walls.

"Why don't we see if we can find some hidden cameras and microphones?" Carissa says, already getting up and unfurling her wings.

"Good idea." I say, glad for the excuse to do something. I stand up and unfurl my black wings.

Izzy and Jay stand at the same time, and Izzy stretches and yawns. She spreads her canary wings slowly, while Jay jumps and tries to unfurl his wings in the air, which is what he's been working on for the past month. This is extremely hard to do, even if your wings are out before you jump. Because we weigh more than normal birds, it's easiest to start out gliding, or flapping slowly. So jumping about six inches into the air and beating your wings vigorously doesn't usually work. Carissa and I can do it, but she's 17 and I'm 14. Izzy can usually do it, which is impressive since she's only nine and a half. As Jay is only five, I don't expect him to be able to do it for a while.

Jay leaps about seven inches and unfurls his wings, but by the time his speckled white wings are fully out, he's sitting on the ground again, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"How about we look in the air and you look on the ground?" Izzy says soothingly.

"Fine." Jay replies, still looking annoyed.

Carissa, Izzy, and I take to the air, as Jay inspects the white walls. After ten minutes, we've found five cameras and four microphones, all in very small pieces now.

"So... what now?" Jay asks.

"Now we plan our escape." I say, "We probably don't have much time. The whitecoats don't know what we're doing, so they're probably storming down here right now."

"How about once they come, we're already pretending to fight with each other, then we fight them. We pretend to already be wounded from fighting with each other, so we fall unconscious after fighting. Then the Erasers will carry us out, and once we get to that large window we saw, we'll break the glass and jump out." Izzy says.

Silence follows her plan, as we all think about it.

"I think it could work." Carissa says finally.

"Me too." I agree.

We all look at Jay.

"Uh.. yeah! Great idea Iz!" Jay says, looking uncomfortable with all of us looking at him.

"Okay then! So Carissa, I'm sick of you bossing me around!" I yell at Carissa. She looks surprised for a second, because she's never been bossy. Then her face lights up.

"Sylverra, you're such a hypocrite! You're always bossing _me_ around!" She yells, trying to stop smiling and look mad.

"Jay, you're such a baby!" Izzy yells at Jay.

"You're always acting like you're my mother!"

"You're always interrupting me!"

"_I'm_ interrupting _you_?! You interrupted me to say that!"

"Your wings are ugly!"

"Yeah? Well, your face is ugly!"

"You can't even fly straight!"

"You're so stupid!"

"I hate you!"

"You smell like an Eraser that hasn't bathed it's whole life!"

"With your anger management problems, your unknown 8% is probably Eraser!"

The door bursts open to show four Erasers and two whitecoats. The Erasers run at us screaming, fighting mutants. We stop fighting each other and descend on them, shouting insults and punching. One by one, we fall "unconscious." As Izzy predicted, they don't hold us as tightly as usual. When we get to the big window, we all leap out of the Erasers' big, hairy hands and jump out the window, flapping like mad.

"Did everyone get out?" Carissa yells through the loud wind.

Three answers are lost by the wind, but we know everyone's here.

"Look! A forest! Let's land there!" Jay says, pointing down at a mass of green.

We angle our wings down, gliding to the forest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry for the crummy chapter,** **but I had to make all the characters meet each other and introduce the other characters to you guys****. The next chapter is awesome- I promise. I'm addicted to constructive criticism, so every time I get some in a review or PM, I'll write for at least 45 minutes, probably more. Thank you! :)**

Rose's Point of View

I hear faint voices on the wind, coming from my left. My head whips around to stare at a four dark figures preparing to land in the forest below. They look human sized, so they could be other winged kids. They're talking too quietly for me to make out any words. I glare at them suspiciously.

"Did you guys see that?" A low voice behind me asks cautiously. I turn to look at John, the oldest member of our group. We're still deciding what to call ourselves, we want something bird-like because seven of us have wings. "Us" is John, Dante, Tom, Calin, Phoenix, AJ, James, and myself.

The voices grow louder as the figures grow closer. I turn to the others and put a finger to my lips, pointing at the human-like shadows, the moon at their back. They land on the tree floor, looking exhausted.

With a hushed argument, we decide whether or not to wait.

"I'm tired of holding up Dante! How many bricks did you feed him this morning?" Calin complains, as Dante squirms in his arms.

"I don't see why _he_ has to carry me. He's always shuffling me around! I'm gonna fall if this keeps going on!" Dante grumbles.

I sigh. Dante doesn't have wings, so someone has to carry him. We've tried leaving him on the ground to run beneath us, because he can run just as fast as we fly, but someone always ends up getting lost.

"Fine. Let's just land here then. We haven't been in a forest for a while anyway." I sigh. I don't really like forests. There's just something about them... I shudder and tilt my wings down, flying to where we heard the voices. Dante drops to the ground about twenty feet up, and runs beneath us. I land ten feet away from where the people were, but there's no one there. I look around doubtfully, sure that someone was here. There's no trace that anyone has been here for at least a week.

"Where could they be? I'm positive that I heard voices." AJ says, looking around as she sucks a cherry lollipop. I have no idea where she gets those things, but she seems to have an infinite stash.

"The wind could've just blown the sound over here from somewhere else." James suggests.

Murmured agreement comes from the rest of the group.

"Okay, now that we've established that there isn't anyone here, we should find a place to camp for the night." I say, glancing up at the rising moon.

We find a few trees about fifty feet away that look perfect for sleeping in, so with only a quick check around us, we go to sleep.

**Carissa's Point of View**

I watch the other group sleeping peacefully. I can't believe they don't have anyone on watch! They're going to get ambushed by Erasers one of these days. All but one of them have wings, so they must be escaped experiments. Or they could be on the School's side, since they have an Eraser with them. From what I've heard, I think the Eraser's name is Tom.

Sylverra, Izzy, Jay, and I stare at them, trying to tell if they're on our side or not. "I say we go to bed and watch them in the morning." Jay says with a yawn.

"Okay. I'll take first watch." I reply.

"Second." Sylverra says, not taking her eyes off the strangers.

"I'll do last." Izzy says, already climbing a tree to sleep in.

Within minutes everyone is asleep, and the only sound is the crickets chirping noisily. The hours pass by slowly and uneventfully, and I wake up Sylverra as the moon reaches it's peak. I shake her gently, and she bolts upright, then relaxes as she sees that everything is fine. We change places silently; me curling up in the crook of some branches, and her sitting erect on a lower branch. I fall asleep immediately and have no dreams all night.

* * *

Morning comes too quickly, but I am glad to wake up on damp bark instead of a hard crate. I glance around to see if the others are up yet. Izzy and Sylverra are talking quietly and animatedly below, and Jay is still sleeping on the branch next to me. I climb over to his branch and poke him a couple of times on the arm, but he only groans and flops over onto his back. I sigh, putting my hand over his mouth and tickling his neck. His eyes shoot open and I grin down at him cheerily. He pulls himself away and opens his mouth to reprimand me, but movement on our left catches my eye. I make a shushing motion and turn to see one of the boys in the other group sitting up and looking around. He wakes up the others, and one of them digs a loaf of bread out of her backpack and divides it amongst the others. Suddenly one of the branches of our tree creaks, and the wingless guy whips around and stares through the trees at us. Soon both groups are glaring at each other, and I find myself starting to unfurl my wings to fly away.

"Wait." A girl with black hair says. Her hair goes to her shoulders and has a white streak in it. She is palely brown skinned and has silver eyes that are black around the edges. Her height suggests that she is seventeen or eighteen, but all of us winged humans are taller than normal. I would guess that she is about sixteen, maybe a bit older. The way she holds herself and how she was she first to speak makes me think that she is their leader.

"Why?" The word is out of my mouth before I know it, but I don't regret it. Why should she get to order us around?

"Because we saw you last night, and we think you're like us. We're on your side. Trust me."

None of us believe her. It will be a long time before any of us trusts anyone again, after having to deal with the School for our whole lives.

"We're not working with the School. We had to escape just like you did."

She rolls up the sleeve on her leather jacket, and even from here I can see huge scars.

"Give us a minute to talk." Sylverra says.

Jay and I climb down so that we're all sitting on the same branch. We have a very quiet discussion of whether or not to trust them. Eventually we decide to say we trust them, but leave the slightest sign that they're traitors.

We climb down the tree, still not showing our wings just in case they turn out to be humans.

"We've decided to trust you." Sylverra says, but still looking suspicious.

"Great! How about we get to know each other?" Someone calls out.

I wince. I hate telling people about myself, they could use it against me later. But everyone else agrees, so before long we're all sitting in a circle, telling about ourselves.

"I'll start." Says the girl who spoke before, telling us to trust her. "My name is Rose, I'm sixteen, and I'm 96% human, 2% avian, and 2% fallen angel." She leans back and motions for the next person to go.

"Sylverra. Fourteen. 90% human, 2% avian, 8% unknown." Sylverra says shortly. Apparently she doesn't like introducing herself either.

"I'm Carissa, I'm seventeen, and I'm 90% human, 5% avian, and 5% lion." I say, looking at the ground. That should be enough information.

"My name is AJ," says a girl with wavy black hair, sucking on a red lollipop. "I'm 16 years old, 5% cheetah, 2% hyena, 2% avian, and 91% human."

The next girl is obviously part cat. She has red hair and freckles, but also two furry cat ears and a long tail.

"I'm Phoenix, 14, and I'm 88% human, 2% avian, and 10% Siberian cat."

Izzy is next, and she doesn't look happy about introducing herself either. That's not surprising though, since back at the School, she had an older sister that she idolized. But then her sister escaped the School and left Izzy. She's had trust issues ever since.

"I'm Izzy, I'm nine and a half, and I'm 97% human and 3% canary." Izzy says quickly, like the others won't remember if she says it fast enough.

"My name is Jay, I'm five years old, and I'm 98% human and 2% snowy owl. And I like cars." Jay adds as an afterthought.

The next two guys look like they've been running with thieves for a while, as they're both scuffed up and muscular.

"I'm John. I'm 19 years old, and 92% human, 2% great white shark, 2% alligator, and 2% bald eagle." He says in a deep voice.

"I'm Dante, 18, I'm 92% human, 5% wolf, and 3% primate. And before you ask, I don't have wings."

So this is the wingless boy. He looks very fast, like he could easily run as fast as I can fly. He has some sort of tattoo on his right shoulder, but I can't tell what it is from this angle. Sitting next to him is a boy who looks about 16, with green eyes and light brown hair.

"My name is Calin. I'm 15, and I'm 3% avian, 1% armadillo, and 96% human." He looks tall for a fifteen year old. I'd say he's at least 5'7, possibly more. The next guy is almost a foot taller though. He's easily the tallest here. I think this is the Eraser, but I'm not sure.

"I'm Tom, I'm 18, and I'm an Eraser." He says. "I have wings." He adds as he sees people peering at his back.

The last person is pale and thin, with short black hair. He looks young, but also quite tall. I think he's about six feet, maybe a little less.

"I'm James, 13 years old, and I'm 93% human, 2% avian, and 5% snake."

We all sit there in silence for a little bit after James finishes, trying to recall all the names we were just told. I know James, Dante, Izzy, Jay, Phoenix, Rose, John, Sylverra, and Calin, but the rest I can only stare at blankly, going through possible names in my head. These people don't seem like they work with the School, but you never know for sure.


	3. Chapter 3

Spread Your Wings- Ch. 3

Verity's POV

Bright lights and voices surround me from all sides, pressing me in claustrophobically. The light is the only thing I can see, the murmuring voices the only thing I can hear.

"...no, not yet..."

"If it dies, we'll make another."

"...eight percent dolphin..."

"...vote. All in favor of..."

There's a small rustling noise, I assume people are raising their hands. Then they all crowd around me, untying the ropes that bind my arms and legs to a metal table. Furry hands grab me and carry me out of the room, as I blink rapidly in an attempt to see. My vision comes back, with black spots lingering on the edges that eventually go away. I am being carried by an Eraser down a long, spotless white hallway. The School.

"Stop here." A voice says, probably a whitecoat.

The Eraser stops abruptly in front of a door. Above it is small, gray writing: Room 4708. Someone opens the door, and the Eraser and whitecoat walk in, dragging me in behind them. It takes my eyes a second to adjust to the light, as the room is very dark. In the middle there's a tank of water with a thermometer on the side. Even with my enhanced eyesight, I can only just make out the temperature: 4 degrees Celsius, or 39 degrees Fahrenheit. I have just started to comprehend what they're going to do when the whitecoat grabs my arm and puts some sort of metal object around my wrist like a bracelet. It's connected to a beeping machine in the corner of the room by a long chain. I stare at it for a few seconds, wondering if it's going to explode or something. The whitecoat that put it on nods at an Eraser, and it grabs me around my waist, lifts me over the top of the tank, and drops me.

I instinctively take a breath before I submerge. Frigid water immediately floods my nose and struggles to get under my closed eyelids. After a few minutes of this, my lungs have started to hurt from lack of oxygen. If they want to kill me, why didn't they just set the Erasers on me? My lungs feel like they're about to explode now, and I'm starting to feel strangely sleepy. I decide that I don't care if I die, anything would be better than this dark, cold, tank, and let out all my air and take in a deep breath. But instead of increasing, the pain in my lungs disappears. I notice bubbles coming out of something in my neck. Are those... gills?

* * *

About ninety minutes later, I'm still in the tank. At least, I think it's been ninety minutes. I was getting so bored and cold that I needed something to do to distract myself, so I started counting the seconds. So here I am, 5,400 seconds later, alone except for my frostbite. I feel so tired, but I think it would be a very bad idea to go to sleep. Either I'm tired, or I'm dying. The latter seems quite likely at this point. Suddenly a bright light appears at the top of the tank. I shrink away from its obnoxious brightness. I can hear voices now, but they're too quiet for me to tell what they're saying. Furry paws reach in and grab my limp body. I don't even move as the Eraser lifts me out of the tank. A wave of freezing cold air hits me, making me feel twice as cold as I already was. "Put me back!" I want to scream at them, the tank was better than the cold I'm experiencing now! They take off the metal band around my wrist and look at the machine in the corner, still talking quietly.

"...incredible. 97 minutes and 24.6 seconds and it still hasn't died yet. "

"Body temperature is 28.7 Celsius, 83.7 Fahrenheit. 14.9 degrees lower than average."

I stop listening to the voices and focus on the Eraser that's holding me. There's only one in the room now, and about three whitecoats. Maybe if I quickly roll out of its arms, I can run out of the room, and then try to escape. I manage to jerkily roll out of the Eraser's (who by now I've named George) arms, but upon hitting the floor I collapse into a shivering heap. George makes a weird barking sound that I assume is a laugh and picks me up again. That small movement took all the life out of me, and now I am too exhausted and cold to struggle. One of the whitecoats moves over to the door and types in a complicated password. He glances over his shoulder about every five seconds to make sure I'm not peeking, but I'm still lying limply in George's arms, trying to move as little as possible to conserve heat. The whitecoat finishes putting in the password and motions for George and the other two whitecoats to follow him. They walk down the hallway until they come to the room with my cage. The whitecoat opens the door for George, who walks in, literally throws me in my cage, slides the lock into place, and leaves.

"Thanks, George. Could you have been any more gentle?" I mutter sarcastically, lying in a shivering, crumpled ball. I fall asleep almost immediately. I dream of being trapped by penguins in the Arctic, while George the Penguin King barks his weird laugh from a throne of ice.

* * *

I wake up to an Eraser prodding me with his claw.

"Nice to see you too, George." I tell him, moving out of the way of his claw. He only snarls and unlocks my cage. When he bends down to pick me up, I kick at his eye. He makes some sort of screaming sound, but grabs me out of my cage all the same. Two whitecoats are waiting impatiently in the hall, and walk briskly down the hall right when George comes out. He's still closing the eye I kicked, and I feel a rush of satisfaction. As we walk down the hall, I notice that one of the windows has been broken and hastily repaired with a thin, tarp-like cover. An idea starts to form in my mind, and I poke George as hard as I can in his wounded eye. He screams like a little girl throwing a tantrum and drops me, clutching his eye. I race for the window, but George grabs my outstretched wing. Now it's my turn to scream as he tears off my pale yellow feathers. I wrench myself away and leap out the already broken window. The whitecoats have matching expressions of horror on their faces, while George looks like he wants to murder me. I flap my wings as hard as I can, trying to get away from the place I've wished to escape for so many years. My left wing is starting to throb where George hurt it, but my spirits are lifted by the fact that I will hopefully never see him again. I ignore the pain and fly faster. Suddenly a searing pain shoots through my left wing, causing me to gasp. I hurtle downward, my wing flailing uselessly. I barely manage to steer myself to a lake with my right wing. It feels like I'm hitting cement when I crash into the peaceful blue surface. It's the cold that reminds me to swim, making me think of the icy tank at the School. I fold in my right wing and swim up to the surface, then to the shore. I collapse uncomfortably on the rocks, just as I see a girl coming towards me. She has long dark brown hair with a red and black section that falls over the front of her red jacket. She also has lightly tanned skin, but in my subconscious state I can't tell anything else. She runs over to me, looking shocked. Then she sees my injured wing lying limply on the rocks and gasps.

"Who are you?" She asks, still staring at my wing.

"Who are _you_?" I manage to say, fighting to stay awake.

"I'm... Kate."

I raise an eyebrow, sure that she's lying.

"You got a problem with my name?" She says, smirking. "You still didn't tell me yours."

"I'm Queen Alexandra the Twenty-Third." I tell her.

"At least _I_ actually tried. Fine, my name is Snow, what's yours?" She asks, nicer this time.

"I'm Verity," I sigh. "Can you-"

"One step ahead of you." She says, placing her hand on my wing.

"Hey! Stop!" I yell as I scramble backwards. I wasn't going to ask for help, I wanted her to leave!

"Look, I can heal your wing," She tells me. "Because I have a pair of my own."

She takes off her jacket and extends two beautiful white wings. Now it's my turn to gasp.

"How-"

"Same place as you, I'm guessing. White laboratory? Wolf-men guards?"

I nod. I always thought I was the only winged experiment. I never considered that fact that others might have escaped too.

She places her hand on my wing again, and this time I don't move away. I stare at my wing as George's claw marks heal themselves, until the only thing left of them are four thin scars. Snow takes her hand off my wing, looking tired.

"Better?" She asks me.

"Perfect! That is so cool!" I say enthusiastically.

She smiles and sits down beside me.

"So... are there more people like us then?" I ask her quietly.

"I'm not sure. I just escaped yesterday. I stopped to sleep here last night." She replies.

"Really? You didn't happen to jump out a window, did you?" I say, beginning to smile at the thought of the broken window.

"I did, actually. But it was already broken when I jumped through it." She says, also smiling.

"So that means three people escaped through that same window? That poor window!"

"If someone else escaped through it, maybe we can find them." Snow says, getting up and unfurling her wings.

**If you didn't already figure it out, that's the window that Carissa, Izzy, Jay, and Sylverra escaped out of. I was in an ironic mood. :D I also got sick of writing "the Eraser" so I named him George. This chapter took me a while to write, so I'm sorry if it's a bit rushed in places. Thanks for reading!**

**-Wren**


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